Radiation-emitting devices are used for the treatment of cancerous tumors within patients. The primary goal of treating cancerous tumors with radiation therapy is the complete eradication of the cancerous cells, while the secondary goal is to avoid, to the maximum possible extent, damaging healthy tissue and organs in the vicinity of the tumor. Typically, a radiation therapy device includes a gantry that can be rotated around a horizontal axis of rotation during the delivery of a therapeutic treatment. A particle linear accelerator (“LINAC”) is located within the gantry, and generates a high-energy radiation beam of therapy, such as an electron beam or photon (x-ray) beam. The patient is placed on a treatment table located at the isocenter of the gantry, and the radiation beam is directed towards the tumor or lesion to be treated.
Radiation therapy typically involves a planning stage and a treatment stage. Generally, the planning stage involves acquiring images of a lesion (using, for example an x-ray device) and subsequently using the image(s) to accurately measure the location, size, contour, and number of lesions to be treated. These are used to establish certain treatment plan parameters, such as an isocenter, beam angles, energy, aperture, dose distribution, and other parameters in an attempt to irradiate the lesion while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue.
Determining the treatment parameters generally requires anatomical information such as the location of the tumor and surrounding critical organs. Generally, the patient is imaged with one or more imaging modalities using two-dimensional or three-dimensional imaging for planning purposes. A physician outlines the organs and volumes of interest, either manually or programmatically using one or more computer algorithms. The treatment plan is then designed to deliver the maximum radiation dose to the outlined target volume while minimizing the dose to surrounding healthy organs and normal tissue. The treatment plan can be designed manually by the user or by optimization algorithms.
Once a treatment plan is determined, the patient receives the radiation treatments during a number of sessions (fractions). Treatment often includes significant time lapses between individual fractions and can also span many weeks (e.g., once a day five days a week for four weeks.) Because organs can change location and/or shape from fraction to fraction, the original treatment plan may no longer be optimal. Three-dimensional imaging modalities that are able to discern soft-tissues are therefore used in the treatment room in order to detect and compensate for organ motion. Because of the time constraints imposed during the individual fractions, methods that provide fast, accurate, and reliable patient positioning data are of great benefit to a radiation technologist administering the radiation treatment.